for future reference
Jan. 28th, 2005 12:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
buggeryThis will go down in history as The Week Everyone Dropped ROBIN In Disgust (Who Hadn't Already More Wisely Dropped It Months Ago, Or Who Didn't Get This Month's Without Realising Their Mistake And Will Thus Be Dropping It Next Month).
I've been buying the title despite apoplectic distaste for Willinghamfucktard's not just bad but *increasingly* bad writing. (The fact that I don't care for the style of Damion Scott's art has not helped.) Having been watching the paroxysms of rage across my friends page for the last two days, however, I've decided enough is enough.
Sales of the title have already been dropping since the new team took over. So much for the alleged marketing genius of the "stunt" a girl Robin turned out to be. The massive "War Games" crossover couldn't save ROBIN, the two-month crossover with BATGIRL that followed couldn't save it, and now that there's no other writer to pull Willinghamfucktard's storylines up, he's apparently even worse.
I'd been gritting my teeth and buying ROBIN every month largely because of the crossovers, and also because I'm a completist, but furthermore because I didn't think my boycott of the title would do any good.
That was before I saw the numbers.
Edited to Add:
As of the December 2004 sales figures, ROBIN had already dropped to #47 on the list of the top 100 best-selling comics titles. That's in contrast to NIGHTWING at #38 and OUTSIDERS at #36, both of which ROBIN used to handily out-sell. TEEN TITANS and BATMAN were at #21 and #22.
If people continue not spending their money on the title, DC will get a worthy writer on ROBIN again. (Just look at ACTION COMICS, for a slightly problematic but still-applicable example.) They have to already be seeing the writing on the wall, so every person who stops plunking down their money every month -- especially if they're taking ROBIN off a pull-list or cancelling a subscription -- will be another nail in the coffin.
I haven't been to my comischop yet this week, and I haven't read any actual spoilers for #134, but I have to have seen at least two dozen people ranting about how insanely bad it was, and nobody playing devil's advocate. I know how to read the writing on the wall, too.
I'll be making a point of saying I was warned about the new ROBIN issue, reading it in the store, letting my full boiling-rage reaction express itself, and then apologising to my comicshop guy when I ask to have it taken off my pull list. (Shops do base their orders in part on customers' pull lists, so anytime someone drops a title the shop winds up with 1-3 months of issues that customer will probably no longer be buying.) Fortunately I'll be picking up at least two if not three titles I hadn't before, this week, as well as putting in a TPB order, so I won't feel too bad about it.
Edited to Add:
If, like me, you've continued buying Willinghamfucktard's ROBIN partly because you don't want gaps in your collection? Drop it anyway. As many unwanted copies of these issues are being printed, we completists will be able to wait a few months and buy the ones we're missing at cut-rate back-issue prices.
Also, I've now been to the comicshop and read ROBIN #134 in the store without purchasing it. Expect a rant to be forthcoming...
I've been buying the title despite apoplectic distaste for Willinghamfucktard's not just bad but *increasingly* bad writing. (The fact that I don't care for the style of Damion Scott's art has not helped.) Having been watching the paroxysms of rage across my friends page for the last two days, however, I've decided enough is enough.
Sales of the title have already been dropping since the new team took over. So much for the alleged marketing genius of the "stunt" a girl Robin turned out to be. The massive "War Games" crossover couldn't save ROBIN, the two-month crossover with BATGIRL that followed couldn't save it, and now that there's no other writer to pull Willinghamfucktard's storylines up, he's apparently even worse.
I'd been gritting my teeth and buying ROBIN every month largely because of the crossovers, and also because I'm a completist, but furthermore because I didn't think my boycott of the title would do any good.
That was before I saw the numbers.
Edited to Add:
As of the December 2004 sales figures, ROBIN had already dropped to #47 on the list of the top 100 best-selling comics titles. That's in contrast to NIGHTWING at #38 and OUTSIDERS at #36, both of which ROBIN used to handily out-sell. TEEN TITANS and BATMAN were at #21 and #22.
If people continue not spending their money on the title, DC will get a worthy writer on ROBIN again. (Just look at ACTION COMICS, for a slightly problematic but still-applicable example.) They have to already be seeing the writing on the wall, so every person who stops plunking down their money every month -- especially if they're taking ROBIN off a pull-list or cancelling a subscription -- will be another nail in the coffin.
I haven't been to my comischop yet this week, and I haven't read any actual spoilers for #134, but I have to have seen at least two dozen people ranting about how insanely bad it was, and nobody playing devil's advocate. I know how to read the writing on the wall, too.
I'll be making a point of saying I was warned about the new ROBIN issue, reading it in the store, letting my full boiling-rage reaction express itself, and then apologising to my comicshop guy when I ask to have it taken off my pull list. (Shops do base their orders in part on customers' pull lists, so anytime someone drops a title the shop winds up with 1-3 months of issues that customer will probably no longer be buying.) Fortunately I'll be picking up at least two if not three titles I hadn't before, this week, as well as putting in a TPB order, so I won't feel too bad about it.
Edited to Add:
If, like me, you've continued buying Willinghamfucktard's ROBIN partly because you don't want gaps in your collection? Drop it anyway. As many unwanted copies of these issues are being printed, we completists will be able to wait a few months and buy the ones we're missing at cut-rate back-issue prices.
Also, I've now been to the comicshop and read ROBIN #134 in the store without purchasing it. Expect a rant to be forthcoming...
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-29 03:32 am (UTC)Willinghamfucktard is under contract, yes, but contracts can be re-negotiated. Let's do our part to convince DC that they should.